Talk:Landmark Worldwide

Tactics and Methods

Does anyone mind if I create a section on methods or technology used within the forum? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dabrams13 (talk • contribs) 16:43, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

That would be fine as long as the info is sourced from Independent Sources WP:IS, NOT Landmark's website or course materials. ---Avatar317^(talk) 19:44, 26 April 2020 (UTC)

I'd like to add that this section on their teaching methods still reads as a puff piece, it doesn't contain any information on the fact that they use behaviour modification methods and coercive control techniques that many reports (many articles on Rick Ross website and this entry on Ney vs Landmark:https://en-academic.com/dic.nsf/enwiki/11816406) have shown are extremely dangerous how can I flag this or edit without it then all getting edited out as happened last time? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Albert8879 (talk • contribs) 19:51, 18 February 2022 (UTC)

Australian Reference

I haven't looked at this page in a long while and I see some questionable stuff has been added. Particularly the Australian references seem like some talking about the accounting blog about training expenses of a single company and has no relevance to a Wikipedia article on Landmark Worldwide. My organization also questioned whether we should spend money on a Project Management training and decided not to because our key Project Manager was sick. What does that mean about the Project Management training- NOTHING. I suggest we remove it. Alex Jackl (talk) 15:48, 28 July 2021 (UTC)

Agreed. It's a non-notable bit of trivia from an Australian tabloid from 13 years ago. DaveApter (talk) 10:00, 29 July 2021 (UTC)

PR tag?

I see that there has been a PR Tag at the heading for some time. I don't see that at all - I can't see any signs of sensationalism, and it certainly doesn't read like a press release. It seems more like a mixture of objective facts and critical comment. Also there's an tag suggesting that additional references would be desirable. That seems odd bearing in mind that there are 71 cited footnotes and a long list of additional references. Can anyone suggest the improvements they'd like to see to satisfy the concerns implied by these tags? DaveApter (talk) 10:15, 29 July 2021 (UTC)

I don't know why it was added, but it appears appropriate, since I can still see a lot of "biz-speak" and puffy language.

I am reluctant to give too many specific examples, because I have done that dozens of times in the past on various talk pages, and editors almost always merely fix exactly those issues without understanding them as examples. So, as just one of many possible examples, Landmark Worldwide#Current operations fails WP:TONE. The first sentence is extremely vague and extremely promotional, and worse, it is obviously not supported by the attached source. Again, as just an example, the idea that training could improve vitality is an extraordinary and extremely ambiguous claim, and so it would need both context and a strong source. The entire article has this problem, so the tag is still appropriate. Grayfell (talk) 03:25, 30 July 2021 (UTC)

Removed tags. I reviewed the links and they seem good and upon comparing to other page son corporations it seems to have more citations not less. It actually is NOT that promotional at all. It actually sounds sort of dry.  :-) Alex Jackl (talk) 16:48, 16 September 2021 (UTC)

Questions on POV

How to add more balance in line with NPOV and using verifiable sources if many sources are blogs or survivor testimonials and will be seen as not verifiable enough?

I have to say I agree that this page still sounds very much like a puff piece. I am a survivor of their 'training' (2009-2014), training which left me with a lifetime of trauma and PTSD and who has had to swallow whole their propaganda in training course after course. So believe me when I say that quite a bit of this Wiki entry reads like one of their promotional booklets in uncritically and basically saying that is transformational personal development training that has been used and endorsed by orgs such as Reebok, PandaExpress, LuluLemon etc.

With no mention of the fact that they use dangerous behavior modification tools and thought reform techniques like NLP, encounter and attack therapy (which includes long sessions of verbal abuse of participants who've often just shared very vulnerable details of their life such as abuse, bullying, troubled relationships etc etc) and guided regression exercises without knowing consent from participants and without any trained licensed mental health professional present.

As I really think we need to add more balance and in line with the policy which states: 'that does not stop us from describing the majority views as such and using the words of reliable sources to present strong criticisms. Fairly explaining the arguments against a pseudoscientific theory or verifiably describing the moral repugnance that people feel toward a notion is fully permitted by NPOV.'

As at the moment someone looking at this Wiki entry would think that this is just a personal development company that offers transformational training to change your relationship to the present and future etc etc. Yes there is some criticism but it's buried and not enough to counter-balance the uncritical reproduction of what Landmark says they are about.

When this training in actual fact has lead to people's: severe depression, anxiety psychosis, psychiatric hospitalisation, triggered suicide, depersonalisation syndrome, PTSD and implants in people a loyal evangelical attitude to Landmark which means they try to convert everyone around them and literally cannot see Landmark in a critical way (other than it can be a bit too intense on sales etc). See: https://en-academic.com/dic.nsf/enwiki/11816406, https://www.win.tue.nl/~aeb/secul/landmark/landmark6.html, https://www.philosophyforlife.org/blog/attack-therapy-and-the-landmark-forum, https://culteducation.com/group/1020-landmark-education/12497-mind-game-courses-aimed-at-public-sector-workers.html, https://forum.culteducation.com/read.php?4,76435,76546)

The only thing I can think of is to quote/cite from Rick Ross's book Cults Inside Out (https://cultsinsideout.com/) as counter-arguments to what Landmark claims to do/be about in their content, with details on the behaviour modification techniques that Landmark uses fro example. As I guess that would count as a verifiable source?

There are also a few media articles but not many because mostly the media have has been really biased in reporting on Landmark for example not talking to survivors and only talking to people who are uncritical whilst only referring in a few lines to criticisms, or else Landmark has many articles taken down and journalists also fear lawsuits so remove references to it being a cult for example. There's some articles in Mother Jones and have quoted some above.

But don't know if they would be counted as too dated as some are from the 90s and I don't know if it matters that the text is not on the original print publication but hosted on different blogs/Rick Ross' website as the publication may be out of print or the articles taken down from the original website.

Rick Ross also did a podcast The Unmistakable Creative (https://play.acast.com/s/the-unmistakable-creative-podcast/thecultofpersonaldevelopment-deprogrammingwithrickalanross) about Landmark but I'm not sure if that would be considered verifiable.

If I could get some advice on this would be much appreciated.

History of litigation section?

I would like to add a section on the history of litigation as I think it's important to show readers the facts of Landmarks' long history of using lawsuits against critics, similar to Scientology. This could also help add to NPOV in understanding the lack of mainstream critical reporting, acting as a counter-balance to the reporters section which only shows positive commentary.

See: https://culteducation.com/group/1020-landmark-education/12303-landmark-education.html#Litigation, https://culteducation.com/group/1020-landmark-education/12390-introduction-to-the-landmark-education-litigation-archive.html, https://www.dmlp.org/threats/landmark-education-llc-v-ross#node-legal-threat-full-group-description and https://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Controversial_development_training_cited_in_religious_discrimination_lawsuits.

Please let me know if this is possible?

Response to Questions

Please sign and date your comments on talk pages; you can do this by typing four tilde ~ characters. I suggest you review Wikipedia's relevant policies, especially what Wikipedia is not and undue weight. I am very sorry to hear that you personally are unhappy with the experience that you had in participating in a number of Landmark courses, but Wikipedia is not a forum for venting your dissatisfactions. If you look at the history of this article, you will see that all of the issues you mention have been entertained at some point in the past and that the consensus of editors was that they were either inadequately verified by reliable sources or expressions of opinions by non-notable individuals. Rick Ross's site is not regarded as a reliable source for example, as has been concluded in discussions on a large variety of topics. As far as I am aware, Landmark has not been involved in litigation for more than ten or fifteen years, and the fact that they took action in several cases in the distant past where they felt that they had been slandered or libelled is adequately covered in the article. The case you mention of Stephanie Ney related to an event before Landmark was even founded, and the court concluded that she had not established that she had been harmed by her participation in a course held by a predecessor organisation. DaveApter (talk) 19:20, 20 February 2022 (UTC)